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How-to: Track your website visitors in Google Analytics

It’s vital to understand how your website is performing on a day-to-day basis and uncover any areas or issues that might need your attention. To do this, you should regularly monitor important metrics such as site visits, sources of traffic and conversions relevant to your business goals. Google Analytics is an absolute must-have for this – plus it’s free and easy to set up and use! In this post we run through how to create a new Google Analytics account from scratch, to start tracking visitors to your Moonfruit site.

1. Create your Analytics account

An Analytics account is made up of an account, properties and views. We recommend reading this article before setting up your account so you understand this hierarchy.

You’ll need a Google account to be able to use Google Analytics. You can sign in here (or signup if you haven’t got a Google account already). In the Analytics dashboard, go to the Admin tab and select the option to add a new account. Make sure the website tracking option is selected and then choose your GA account name. Next, enter your website name and address (this is the property of your account). If you are using a custom domain name with your site, you can enter that instead of the .moonfruit.com address. You can also choose your industry category (optional) as well as your reporting time zone.

At this point, Google will also ask you about your data sharing preferences – again, these are completely optional. You may want to share your Analytics data with other Google products, especially if you plan on using things like Adwords and Webmaster tools to gain more insights about your site performance.

2. Get your tracking ID

When this form is completed, click ‘Get tracking ID’. You’ll need to read and accept the Google Analytics terms of service agreement before you can get your GA tracking code.

You should now see your unique tracking ID displayed. Usually, you would need to add the tracking code into the head section of each webpage you want to track. If you have a Moonfruit site, this isn’t necessary! You only need to add the tracking ID – we’ll make sure it tracks every page for you.

3. Add your tracking ID to your site

Copy your tracking ID and then log into the editor of your site. Go to the Services tab in the top toolbar and click the Setup option for Google Analytics. Paste in your tracking code and click save.

You should then see a confirmation message telling you that Google Analytics has been enabled. That’s it! The reporting tab in GA is where you can check your website data. If you don’t see anything in Analytics straight away, don’t panic. It can take 24-48 hours for data from your site to start feeding through. In the meantime, you can check the Real-Time report for live information about visitor activity on your site.